Conclusions Based on the Four Quantitative Data Sources

Although the data sources used to trace the relationship between city tourism and culture are not strictly comparable, all the evidence points in the same direction as far as tourist demand, motivation and activities are concerned.

Trends in city tourism

The TourMIS data indicate a strong growth in European city tourism up to the year 2000, followed by a slight decline in 2001 and 2002. Initial results for 2003 indicate a recovery, with growth in bednights averaging almost 4%. The recent decline seems to relate mainly to the impact of September 11, although economic factors are also evident. The recent decline in foreign arrivals in European cities has been compensated to a certain extent by strong domestic demand. In terms of the types of cities attracting visitors, larger cities in cluster 5 and 6 continue to dominate the market, but smaller cities in clusters 2, 3 and 4 seem to have been more resilient in the face of recent problems.

In overall terms, both the IPK International data and TourMIS show similar patterns of growth in city tourism arrivals until the peak year of 2000, followed by a decline in 2001 and 2002. This decline was reversed in 2003 with a growth in European city arrivals that outstripped global tourism growth. It is difficult to say whether culture has increased its share of the total city trip market based on the available data sources. Independent research by ATLAS (Richards 2001) however indicates that cultural tourism demand has tended to grow at about the same rate as total tourism demand. This would seem to indicate a growth in future cultural tourism demand as global tourism recovers, but not an increase in market share.

Profile of city cultural tourists

The city tourist who consumes culture has a similar profile to the cultural audience as a whole. Visitors tend to be predominantly female, highly educated with professional or managerial occupations and relatively high incomes. This confirms the image of cultural tourists as having high spending power. The one stereotypical image not confirmed by the data is the cultural tourist as ‘grey panther’. Although older cultural tourists do tend to undertake more cultural activities and spend more during their city trips, cultural tourism in cities is an activity followed by all age groups, with the peak age group in terms of participation lying between 20 and 30. However, those over the age of 50 tend to visit more cultural attractions on average than younger tourists.

Motivations and attractions

Culture is confirmed as the single most important motivation for city trips, although relatively few visitors view themselves as ‘cultural tourists’ (20%). A large number of city visitors are attracted by historic city centres, and museums account for a large proportion of cultural activities undertaken in cities, followed by art galleries and monuments. The cultural tourism product of cities is highly dependent on the inner circle (heritage and arts) in terms of attraction visits, but there is growing evidence that the more intangible aspects of culture included in the outer circle (lifestyle and creative industries) are becoming increasingly important in distinguishing between cities. This seems to indicate that intangible product elements such as ‘atmosphere’ are becoming more important for the consumer.

This presents important challenges for the marketeer in terms of transmitting the essence of the atmosphere of the city to potential visitors.

Cultural events tend to be much less important than fixed attractions in city visits, probably because of temporal and information-related problems. The development of the European Cultural Capital event also points to a degree of event competition arising in Europe, where the international attention created by major cultural events will draw a significant proportion of the ‘mobile’ cultural public in any one year.

Information sources and booking

The most important source of information is personal recommendation from family or friends, but the influence of the Internet is rapidly growing. Internet bookings already account for about 9% of city cultural trip bookings and initial figures for 2004 indicate a rising trend. This points to the continuing importance of individual travel, with less than 20% of visitors having booked a complete package holiday. The majority of visitors make the decision to visit a cultural site before they leave home, and this is particularly prevalent among older visitors. However, over 30% of visitors leave their final decision until they arrive in the destination.

Mode of travel, accommodation and travel group

City cultural tourists travel relatively frequently by air to their city destination (over 40%) and they tend to stay in hotels, which partly accounts for their relatively high expenditure. The most frequent travel group is a couple without children, reflecting the DINKIES (double income, no kids) domination of the market. Groups with children only account for about 20% of total visits. Within the city destination, domestic visitors tend to travel by car, whereas foreign tourists are more likely to use public transport or walk.

Geographical distribution

In terms of the geographical distribution of trips, culture and heritage tend to be most important for those countries with a high density of urban population, tending to confirm the close link between urban (and particularly metropolitan) culture and cultural tourism. The major source markets in Europe are the UK and Germany, which account for almost 40% of all outbound city trips, which is not surprising given their importance as source markets for tourism in general. The highest levels, however, of foreign city trips per head of population are found in the smaller countries of Scandinavia and

North-West Europe, primarily because of the high level of cross-border trips by car. France, the UK and Germany are also the most important destinations for city trips, although cultural motivations tend to be highest for trips to Denmark, Germany, Switzerland and Italy.

Summary

In summary, it seems that although city cultural tourism continues to be dominated by the established

‘cultural capitals’ in clusters 5 and 6, there is evidence of trends towards more trips to smaller destinations and new regions of Europe. This shift seems to be based partly on novelty value and partly on the provision of new opportunities in terms of attractions and accessibility. There also seems to be a shift away from purely heritage based tourism towards heritage plus culture, or heritage plus culture and creativity. This is most clearly illustrated in the success of cultural events across Europe, which are increasingly based on creative rather than heritage assets. Although larger cities may be able to muster more heritage and cultural resources to attract tourists, the increasing importance of creativity as an attraction factor is creating a more level playing field in the cultural tourism market, since creative assets are much more mobile than heritage or tangible culture.

Endnotes:

1 Aachen, Amsterdam, Augsburg, Baden-Baden, Barcelona, Basel, Berlin, Bern, Bonn, Bregenz, Bremen, Brussels, Budapest, Copenhagen, Düsseldorf, Eisenstadt, Florence, Frankfurt, Gent, Genua, Graz, Hamburg, Heidelberg, Helsinki, Karlsruhe, Klagenfurt, Laibach, Lausanne, Leipzig, Linz, Lisbon, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Milan, Munich, Münster, Nürnberg, Olmütz, Oslo, Paris, Regensburg, Rome, Salzburg, Saragossa, St. Pölten, Stockholm, Stuttgart, Tampere, Valencia, Venice, Vicenza, Vienna, Würzburg, Zagreb, Zurich.

2 Visiting friends and relatives.

3 In the last round of data collection, most interviews were held in spring/summer 2001, and do not therefore reflect the impact of September 11^th 2001.

4 Visiting friends and relatives.

In this chapter the anticipated developments with regard to the growth of cultural tourism over the coming decades and the possible related effects are highlighted. The contents of this chapter are based primarily on the qualitative research carried out for this study namely the Internet poll ⁵, the workshops and related desk research. In this chapter and chapter 4 and 5 some results of the Internet poll are presented as illustrations in the boxes next to the text.

3.1 Tourism 2020

In the report “Tourism 2020 Vision”, the World Tourism Organization (WTO) forecasts an increase in world tourism from 565 million international tourist arrivals in 1995 to 1,006 million arrivals in 2010 and to over 1,561 million arrivals in 2020. WTO expects the number of arrivals in Europe to increase from 338 million arrivals in 1995 to 527 million arrivals in the year 2010 and 717 million in 2020. This means an average annual growth rate of 3%. Despite the absolute increase in number of arrivals in Europe, the share of the region will drop from 59.8 % to 45.9% in the same period. This is caused by the relatively strong growth of share by regions such as the Middle East (annual average growth of 7.1%), East Asia and the Pacific (annual average growth of 6.5%) and South Asia (annual average growth of 6.2%). In comparison, the average annual growth rate for world tourism is forecasted to be 4.1%. Europe will, nevertheless, remain the region with by far the largest market share.